Cadets and Trudoviks[1]

Published:Rabochaya Molva, No. 1, March 1, 1907. Signed:N. L—n.

      Published according to the text inRabochaya Molva.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Foreign Languages Publishing House,1962,

      Moscow,Volume 12,

      pages189-192.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

InRusskaya Zhizn, No. 49, Comrade D. Koltsov repeats the usual
Menshevik argument in favour of the policy of support for the Cadets. But he
does it so forthrightly and naively that there really is nothing left to do but
thank him for reducing an erroneous theory to the absurd.

“Withwhom have the Social-Democrats the greater number of points of
contact,” he asks in his article “The Cadets and Bourgeois
Democracy”, “with urban or rural democracy? From whom can
Social-Democracy the sooner expect support in its struggle against cultural,
religious, national and other prejudices? Who will the sooner support all
measures likely to liberate the productive forces? It is only necessary to raise
these questions, which are basic in Social-Democratic policy, for the answer to
be clear of itself. Everything in theCommunist Manifestoconcerning
the revolutionary role of the bourgeoisie remains as true in the twentieth
century as it was in the nineteenth, as true for Russia as it was for England,
... etc. As far as rural democracy is concerned, it will in many cases defend
old, outworn modes of production and social organisation, despite its
revolutionary gallop.... When the Bolsheviks speak about the Cadets they forget
the urban democracy that stands behind them; on the contrary, for them
the Socialist-Revolutionary and Trudovik parliamentary group is the
embodiment of the
entire peasantry. This means that they cannot see the wood for the trees, cannot
see the social interests of the broad masses of the people behind
parliamentary representation.”

Fromthe bottom of our heart we welcome this Menshevik turn to the study of thefundamentalprinciples of our disagreement on tactics. It is high time.

Andso the Cadets arethe progressive urban bourgeoisieand the
    Trudoviksthe backward rural bourgeoisie. This is what your
    “Marxism” amounts to.

Ifthis is true, why do you not say so openly and directly to the whole Party?
Why do you not announce, clearly and distinctly, in a draft resolution for the
Party congress, that, in the name of theCommunist Manifesto, the
R.S.D.L.P. isduty boundto support the Cadetsagainst the
Trudoviks?

Weshould he very glad if you were to make this statement. We have been
demanding it of you for a long time; we did so long before the Unity Congress,
when wedefinedthe class composition of the Constitutional-Democrats
and Socialist-Revolutionaries in the, draft resolution on our attitude to the
bourgeois parties, and invited you to giveyour definition.

Howdid you answer this challenge?

Youevaded it. In your draft resolution for the Unity Congress there is
no attempt to express the idea that the Constitutional-Democrats are the
progressive urban democracy, arid the Trudoviks (Peasant Union,
Socialist-Revolutionaries, etc.) the backward rural democracy. Inyourresolution for
the Unity Congress on the attitude to the bourgeois parties there is only a
repetition of the Amsterdam

resolution,[2]a repetition that is peculiar on account of its
indecisiveness.

Todaywerepeatthe challenge. We have again raised the question of the
Marxist definition of the class basis of the various bourgeois parties in
Russia. We have published the appropriate draft resolution.

Andwe are certain that you willagain refuse to accept the challenge.
We are certain that you will not risk writing, in the draft of the official
Menshevik resolution, that the Cadets are the progressive urban bourgeoisie and
that they,to a greater extent than the Trudoviks, promote a policy of
the free development of the productive forces, etc., etc.

Hereis how matters stand:

Themain economic problem in the present bourgeois revolution in Russia is that
of the peasants’ struggle for land. This is a struggle inevitably brought about
by the desperate position of the peasantry, the many survivals of serfdom in the
Russian countryside, etc. The struggleimpels the peasant masses towards a decisive democratisation of political
relations (for without the democratic reorganisation of the state the peasants
cannot overcome the feudal-minded landlords) and towards the abolition of landed
proprietorship.

Forthis very reason the Social-Democrats includeconfiscationof
the landed estates in their programme. It is only the extreme opportunists
among. Social-Democrats who are not in sympathy with this programme and defend
the substitution of the word “alienation” for
“confiscation”, althoughthey are afraid to present such a draft
openly.

TheCadets are a party of the liberal bourgeoisie, liberal landowners and
bourgeois intelligentsia. If D. Koltsov has any doubts about the landowner
colouring of the Cadets, we can point to two facts:

(1) the composition of the Cadet group in the First Duma. Refer to

Borodin’s[3]book, Comrade Koltsov, and you will see how many landlords
there were there;

(2) the Cadets’ draft agrarian programme is, in effect, a plan ofthe
capitalist landlord. Land redemption payments, conversion of the peasant
into aKnecht, and the formation of local land commissions of equal
numbers of landlords and peasants with chairmen appointed by the
government—all this shows as clearly as can be that Cadet
policy in the agrarian question is one of retaining landed proprietorship bycleansingit of some of its feudal traits, and by the peasant’s
ruination through redemption payments and his shackling by government
officials. In this way the economic significance of Cadet agrarian politics
amounts toa decelerationof the development of the productive forces.

Theconfiscation of landed estates and the complete victory of peasant
democracy would, on the contrary, mean themost rapiddevelopment of
the productive forces possible under capitalism.

Inour draft resolutions for the Fifth Congress we givedirectexpression tothisassessment of theeconomicsignificance of
Cadet policy. Once more: please express your “Marxist theory” as
clearly as this, Comrade D. Koltsov!

Acomparison of the Cadet and Trudovik agrarian projects and their attitude to
questions of political democracy (the law on assembly in the First Duma, the
attitude to the various types of organisation for local agricultural committees,the programmes of the Constitutional-Democratic Party and the Trudovik
    Group in the First Duma, and so on, and so forth), shows that the Cadets
    are a party of liberals, striving, and forced to strive,to haltthe revolution by reconciling liberty with the old authorities (to the
    detriment of liberty) and the landlord with the peasant (to the detriment
    of
    the peasant). The Trudovik parties (the Popular Socialists, Trudoviks, and
    Socialist-Revolutionaries) are the urban and, particularly, the rural
    (i.e., peasant) petty bourgeois democracy,forcedto strive for the
    further development of the revolution.

Thevictory of the revolution in Russia is possible only if the proletariat
carries with it the democratic peasantry both against the old order and against
the liberals.

Thispostulate, which determines thefundamentalsof the Bolshevik
tactics as a whole, was excellently confirmed by the entire experience of the
First Duma and the post Duma period. Only by reducing our disputes tofundamentalsshall we transform them from squabbles into the solution
of the basic problems of the bourgeois revolution in Russia.

Wetherefore welcome the frankness and directness of Comrade Koltsov, and repeat
our challenge: let the Mensheviks try to formulatetheseideas
concerning the Cadets and the Trudoviks, and express them clearly and
unequivocally.

[1]“Cadets and Trudoviks” was published on March 1, 1907, inRabochaya Molva(Worker’s Word), No. 1, a Bolshevik legal political
and literary newspaper, publication of which was begun in St. Petersburg. On the
day the first issue appeared it was confiscated and its publication
forbidden.

[2]Amsterdam resolution—Lenin refers here to
“The International Rulings as to Socialist Action” adopted by the
Amsterdam Congress of the Second International in August 1904.

TheAmsterdam International Socialist Congress of the Second
Internationalwas held from August 14 to August 20, 1904. The Congress
agenda contained the following points:

(1) the international rulings as to socialist action;

(2) colonial policy;

(3) the general strike;

(4) social policy and the insurance of workers;

(5) trusts and unemployment, and others.

Theattitude to bourgeois parties was expressed in the resolution on “The
International Rulings as to Socialist Action” which forbade socialists to
participate in bourgeois governments, and condemned “all efforts to gloss
over the existence of class contradictions in order to make a rapprochement
with bourgeois parties easier”. Although it marked a step forward, the
Congress resolution was only half-hearted, and as a whole was a further
concession to opportunism. The Congress did not raise the question of
the development of a mass general strike into an armed uprising, and did not
oppose the Right opportunists, who justified the colonial policy of the
imperialist states. In word the Congress condemned revisionism but did not, in
its resolution, declare a break with opportunism, and was silent on the question
of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

[3]Borodin’s book—The State Duma in Figures, by
    N. A. Borodin, Deputy to the First State Duma, St. Petersburg,
    1906. According to Borodin’s figures, of the 153 Cadets in the First Duma,
    92 were of the nobility. Of these, 3 owned landed estates between 5,000 and
    10,000 dessiatines; 8 owned estates from 2,000 to 5,000 dessiatines;
8 owned estates from 1,000 to 2,000 dessiatines and 30 owned estates from 500 to
1,000 dessiatines. Thus about one-third of the Cadet deputies were big
landowners.